Robocup 2006 Bremen from a Sponsor’s point of view

(updated version of post)

Due to my position as product manager, I had the chance to visit official part of robocup as well as the sponsor's gala dinner. My employer had provided some LCD TV screens for displaying score and schedule for the games. In the result, we got some VIP tickets, and event better, an invitation to the sponsor's dinner.

At the time I arrived, the semi final round was ongoing. Unfortunately I am not so familiar with robocub mach rules. Therefore it looked a bit funny to see all robots stop on whistle command of the (human) referee. Then, the ball was repositioned, followed by whistle command and the match continued. Anyway, the portugese team managed to proceed to final match next day in "small size robot league:

 

Another interesting group of robos was famous Sony AIBO robots. These are available to anyone. I owned an older version for a short period of time, and I never have seen AIBO to move so smooth, fast and controlled. Unfortunately the ERS-7 is the last product in this range as Sony decided to stop production and development of this robot. From this perspective, AIBO is intersting example for a product which is beyond time.

 

The event not only was robocup, there also was some space for presentations of the companies involved and the sponsor. Most impressive to me were two products:

The robots of some manufacturers, e.g. GRAUPNER (you can see the robot in action here). They have reached a level which gives them basic human structure (means it has 2 legs, 2 arms, hands and a head).

Most impressive to me was a presentation system called point screen developed by Frauenhofer Institute. It enables touchless screen navigation, moving around objects on screen or activate objects just using your hands. The video image is projected on a semi transparent screen. The full szenery looks very similar to the system used in the movie "minority report". Unfortunately I did not take photos of this, but you can browse to some impressions on above link.

After the official part of robocup, the dinner started in "Sponsors lounge". Some representatives of the sponsors have been invited by Messe Brehmen to say "thank you for supporting us" to the several companies. We have been in small area, which just was divided by a glass wall to the area where the robocup teams had their dinner (which of course was not as exclusive than ours). I felt a bit like in a zoo, not sure who is the visitor and who's the animal….. By accident I was on same table as the Graupner guys and so we had chance for some interesting discussion.

Later that evening, the party started with music and bands. I am sure some robocup team members already were a bit nervous as the next day decided who will be the world champion in robotic football this year.